Thursday, May 04, 2006

Free to Live

Zacarias Moussaoui gets to keep his life after all. I didn't follow the trial very closely, but i can't say i'm disappointed in the decision to keep him in a maximum security prison for the rest of his life. I'm also glad to see that some families who lost loved ones during 9/11 appear to be happy with the verdict. Makes me feel that justice was indeed served. The decision to me has multiple meanings. First, it shows me that America is better than him. We aren't about kill first and ask questions later (at least at the judicial level, outside of Texas). Second, i am not completely confident in our capital punishment system. I used to support capital punishment, but nowadays i'm not so sure about that anymore. I'm not completely confident that the system ALWAYS gets the verdict correct, or the right person for that matter. It doesn't seem moral to send a person to their death if one is not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. Until there becomes a way to always get the person with 100% conviction then I will always question the method of sending someone to their death. Another problem I have with capital punishment is the kind of people that support it. Now, please don't get me wrong, I am not trying to say everyone that supports capital punishment is this way, but the people that support it seem to also despise abortion. To me this kind of logic doesn't fly. If you are going to pick a side in the life or death debate then you should go the whole way. If you're pro-life then you should be anti-war, and anti-capital punishment. Me, I am pro-choice, pro-war (ONLY as a last resort), but anti-capital punishment.

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